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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

...with my new Cintiq.
I'm actually surprised at how much pleasure I'm getting from this new digital drawing tablet. I've been using it to create some nice, finished work for different freelance jobs, but it has also been a great tool just for sketching out quick ideas and concepts. Never underestimate the power of the "undo" function!
Here are a couple rough sketches just for fun...

Yeah, I've been watching all of Breaking Bad lately. Awesome show...

Above, are some VERY rough ideas for a character I'm creating for a future story (tease!). The beauty of the Cintiq is that I probably spent all of two minutes roughing this out, and decided that it was worth saving as a JPEG for further development. Easy peasy, lemon squeezie. Or whatever.

And lastly, this is basically a "phone doodle" that I messed around with while talking to someone about something completely unrelated! This was after reading Mike Mignola's terrific illustrated horror novel, Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, which I really enjoyed, BTW. Worth reading!
I'll share some more finished stuff soon!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Yeesh! Imagine my shock when I pulled up my blog this morning, and realized that I have not posted in over 2 months! (Sorry 'bout that) I'm still in full-on busy mode, and that's a good thing. No complaints. Keep it coming, I say.
I have a few items that I can share today. First, some basic design work that I did a couple of months ago...

Nothing earth-shattering here; just some basic package design for some DVDs that are currently on sale from Kino Lorber. I haven't done a lot of these before, but they're kind of fun! I think key art is interesting to me simply because of the subject matter; I love film.
Here are a couple of unused designs I worked on for another client earlier this year...

These were an interesting challenge for a few reasons. There are 2 packages, each with a different number of films/discs included. The designs here are for 2 covers (each), split down the middles. The idea is that you could line up the two packages side-by-side and they would create one cohesive design. There were several of us working up comps for this project, and I think the client (WB) went in a completely different direction. On this project, I really enjoyed creating the different type treatments for Tim Burton's name.
I've also been doing some commercial storyboard work and sketch art for the entertainment biz. Here's an example of a sketch that was used for a photo shoot...

Here's the photo, from the website of the new Disney TV show, Jessie...

Interestingly, when I drew the sketch, the show was not yet cast, except for the lead, Debbie Ryan. The rest of the kids were just described to us by "type." This was my first time doing this kin of "sketch art" for entertainment marketing. I think it's cool how similar the photo ended up being to my sketch. For fun, here are a couple of alternative sketches, they didn't use...

I've done some sketch art for a few other projects,lately. It's been educational. I also recently met a guy who does this regularly, named Jesse Vital. He does all of his sketch art digitally, and he talked me into buying a Cintiq, so I could do the same. I got mine in early September, and it has truly changed the way I work in a profound way. It's an awesome tool, and I'll need to devote a blog post just about how great it is. Since I got the Cintiq, I have finished several illustration projects (including some comics stuff), without touching a oiece of paper.
Here's an example of a comic book page, drawn (or "painted") completely digitally, for LION magazine...

And a nifty "background" that I used for the same job...

I'll tell you more about that particular project next month.
Lastly, I'll share this:

It's a page from the second issue of Firestorm from DC Comics. I'm doing the digital coloring on this series (yes, using the Cintiq!) over line-art drawn by the talented Yildiray Cinar. The comic is a great part of DC's "New 52" relaunch and worth checking out. Unfortunately, issue #2 had some printing problems, and the actual comic doesn't look this great. Very sad, but I hear that the digital version available on Comixology looks terrific, and that they will try to fix the glitches in the collected trade paperback.
That's all for now. I'll leave you with this blurry phone pic of me working on my new toy...